Plating, polishing, and cleaning processes are an essential part of media disk fabrication. In a media disk polishing operation, media disks are loaded in and out of a polishing machine via a transverser. For example, a transverser is an apparatus that can hold a plurality media disks simultaneously (e.g., 50 or more), and allows rapid loading and unloading of the media disks at the polisher machine to maximize machine utilization and to prevent dry-out of the polishing pad.
The transverser has a plurality of disk grippers (e.g., 50 or more) that each include a pair of chuck bodies each coupled to a respective gripper finger via a fastener such as a screw and/or a bolt. The gripper fingers of the disk gripper, when supplied with compressed air, move away from each other in a linear manner, gripping a media disk at its inner diameter. Similarly, a compressed air supply moves the fingers towards each other to release the media disk from its grip. In this way, loading and unloading of media disks from a polishing machine can be enabled.
In the event that media disks of a different form factor (e.g., 95 mm to 65 mm or vice-versa) need to be loaded into the polishing machine, the chuck body mounted on the gripper fingers will need to be changed to match the inner diameter of the media disks for proper gripping. Since a chuck body is mounted on a gripper finger via multiple fastener bolts, it takes time to change the chuck body as it involves unfastening the chuck body from the gripper finger by removing the screw and/or bolt, and then fastening a new chuck body on the gripper finger to accommodate media disks of a different form factor. The process of dismounting and attaching 50 pairs of chuck bodies will involve considerable machine downtime for each transverser, which creates a loss of production.
In addition, screw-mounted chuck bodies have screw holes with considerable tolerance, which can cause the chuck body to be mounted at the gripper finger with height differences. Therefore, height alignment during chuck body mounting is crucial to bring each of the chuck bodies' working chamfer surfaces into same working height. Failure to do this will cause the chuck bodies to be unable to pick up the disk—a “chuck miss” event. Due to inconsistencies of alignment during chuck body change, chuck body height alignment is difficult to control.